Intro and Advice on Dealing with the Baby Crazies??

kmprice

Hello! I'm new here to The Bump and actually the entire The Knot/The Nest/The Bump community.

A little background - my husband (age 24) and I (age 26) have been best friends for 8 years but have only been together for the past two years. It's very much When Harry Met Sally (including that I completely hated him the first time we met AND he was dating my friend). We got engaged after dating 6 months and married a year and a half after that in September 2013.

About two months after we got married, I had my yearly exam with a new gyno (we moved in May 2013 and I didn't get insurance until after we got married) and he asked if it'd freak me out if he put me on prenatals. I guess it's understandable, being a young newlywed not on birth control - I don't respond well to hormonal BC - but I don't feel like my old, completely awesome gyno would've asked. I said yes to the vitamins anyway, because in the office I was just like, "Cool, I'll have good hair and nails," and he assured me they'd be free at the pharmacy. Well, I guess it did freak me out because immediately after that, it was like a light switch turned on in my uterus and it was all, "Baby? BABY. NOW."

So I brought it up to my husband and after looking at finances/timing, we agreed that it'd be best to wait to start TTC until August of this year. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't RIGHT. NOW. but I understand the waiting.

In the meantime, I've started tracking my BBT using Fertility Friend and I'm waiting on Taking Charge of Your Fertility to come in the mail so I can read that. I've put an exercise plan in place, because I hate exercising and I know that's going to be the hardest thing for me to start up and stick to. I've read pretty much every post and all of the comments on Offbeat Families because that site seems to mesh the most with my particular flavor of how I want my TTC/pregnancy/parenting to go, but they're not posting anymore and I can't find any other sites I like as much. I've pretty much 100% immersed myself into everything baby - when I'm not reading about it, I'm thinking about it, and when I'm not thinking about it, I'm dreaming about it (seriously).

How do I reel myself in from the deep end that I seem to have plunged myself into? Or is this something that's just going to keep up until August/until I drive my husband away with baby nonsense?

I'm sorry this is so long, but as I grow older I'm noticing that I seem to have somehow fallen in with the "no kids EVER" crowd, so I don't know who to talk to about this besides internet people.

mobraniff

So I am sitting in the same boat with the desire for a child- this would be our second. The biggest thing I can recommend is immerse yourself in your marriage. You are still considered a newlywed and should enjoy everything that means. If everything goes to plan this will be your only Valentines day without having to find a sitter, spring and summer where you can go on fun vacations, etc. They talk about taking a baby-moon - well I am huge proponent of taking prebabymoons. Even if it is just locking yourself away for a weekend with the hubby. 

This does not mean you can't do the pillowtalk about names and dreams of what the baby will do, but also getting to know your husband and building that friendship. 

Good luck with everything! Enjoy it! 

Jags8

I dunno, it sounds to me like you're doing fine. If you and your DH have made plans to start TTC in August, I think it's completely fine to be reading pregnancy/baby stuff now. It's not like TTC is still a few years away for you.
In the meantime, continue to work on your finances to be sure you're in a good place. Perhaps also make a list with your DH of things you want to accomplish/do before you start TTC. Not only is it just a good thing to do for yourself and DH, but it gives you something else to focus on.

bumpuser794640

Get a different hobby.  Focus on your new exercise regimen, lose some weight if you want to, work toward any other non-baby related goals you might have.  Enjoy your time as a young married couple!  August is not that far away at all.   GL!

SmileyJay

Sorry to say for some I don't think the baby fever ever goes away until the door is shut and you can no longer have children. If you plan to be a parent it will always be in the back of your mind.

I am also 24, married to my high school sweetheart that turns 26 next week. We have been married almost 3 years and planning to start ttc this cycle (woo hoo!). You aren't alone. I started reading about all things baby years ago and just now bought the mayo clinic guide (which I read in 3 days) and seriously learning about everything I feel I need to know. We have been working for the past 5 years to get to where we want to be to start a family, kids have always been something we talked about regularly. Start an exercise routine, clean up your diet, take your prenatals, and do kegal exercises. I take the gummy prenatals and love them, I hate taking pills and conveniently forget them. Live on a baby budget for a few months to see how that goes.. include everything from full time childcare if you will need it and formula even if you choose to breastfeed. This will help a lot. Check into your insurance, I was shocked to learn it would cost $700 to add one child to our plan, but I can get BCBS for $150 that covers essentially the same stuff. 

Just a note - all good doctors will recommend that any woman of childbearing age is on a prenatal unless she is totally abstinent. Birth control fails and you really need to be on it for a few months before getting pregnant to get the full benefits. Most Americans diets are awful and they don't get natural sources of folic acid and other important nutrients. Staying on a prenatal regardless lowers the risk of all sorts of scary disorders if you got pregnant and didn't know it for several months. For example, some women take birth control that lets them go 3 months or more without a period so they would not notice if they didn't have a period. Something happens and they get pregnant - by the time they find out they are in the 2nd trimester with no prenatal care. Scary stuff! 

Ducktale

GnomeSweetGnome said:

Get a different hobby.  Focus on your new exercise regimen, lose some weight if you want to, work toward any other non-baby related goals you might have.  Enjoy your time as a young married couple!  August is not that far away at all.   GL!

This exactly. Even when you do have a baby you still need a life outside of a baby. Develop/pursue other hobbies, do all the things in life that would be more difficult with kids and you'll have wished you'd done, make non-baby goals like Gnome said and work towards them. Having baby fever is normal; being entirely all-consumed with baby is a problem. I think you need to cold turkey stay off TB, blogs, books...whatever. It seems obsessive to me.

kmprice

Ok, thank you everyone. I think more than anything, I just needed confirmation that I'm normal. DH and I agreed to research in this pre-TTC time but I think we just have very different approaches to situations. I plan every single minute detail, he takes action and adjusts as necessary. We compliment each other well, but we are very different people.

I think the thing that has bothered me most is the response from parents when he's told them that we are going to start TTC soonish. It's only been, "Are you sure you want THIS?" while pointing to their kids and, "Things are going to change!" with a "playful" elbow to the ribs. I feel like they're both a first-cousin to the "you'll sees" and it's just frustrating and defeating. And I think between me being super gung-ho and him receiving this message from current parents, he's just less excited than I am. Not that I don't think he'll get there, but I don't think I'm helping right now.

So I guess even though what I want to do is research all things baby and then talk about it, so I feel like we, as a couple, are better prepared when the time comes, it's not the way that he deals with stressful situations. And I'm just not sure how to balance my desire to research and his desire to just deal with situations as they arise.

I agree that I probably need another hobby, but the issue is mostly that I usually have A LOT of downtime at work and I can just read the internet basically all day. So while it'd help at night, it doesn't do much during the day when I'm bored for 9 hours and trying to fill space. And honestly, at night I am just spending time with DH. As lame and old person as it sounds, we play a lot of after dinner canasta to spend time together and just enjoy each other's company, and weekends are filled with friends. We rarely have a weekend that's just us. So it's just that my job has downtime in which I need to "look busy" and that's when I'm doing all of this research.

And Offbeat Families is another parenting website that just posts articles about trends/birth stories/maternity pictures/etc but they cater to "non-traditional" families/people. There are a lot of posts about adoption, LGBT families, transgender, etc. Even if it didn't directly pertain to me, I usually found the posts interesting and insightful